Best Nollywood movies streaming on Netflix, Nigerian female artistes through the years – Here are the best Nigerian articles of the week

Each week here at YNaija, we round up the best Nigerian writing on the internet, highlighting the stories, profiles, interviews and in-depth reporting that rise above the daily churn. Here are the ones that caught our attention:

Take a look at the top-grossing American films and you’ll find just about nothing but reboots and sequels. It took a former health economist to see the opportunity for Nigeria. And as those who know Charles Okpaleke can attest, when he falls upon an idea, he pursues it to its logical conclusion regardless of the obstacles in his path.

It has been wonderful to see Obesere receive a lap of honour on the streets of social media; in a country where cultural archives are not as detailed as one would like, his re-entry into our consciousness is a twin reminder of what a brilliant – and prescient – musician he was, is, and how much fuller we must leave archives for a succeeding generation, however that may be: YouTube videos, essays, cultural critiques, Twitter threads, and the whole work.

But the story is not about the military rulers, though the instability that their regimes caused has a significant impact on the characters’ lives. Ogadimma, after a traumatic event, finds herself as the wife of a man with whom she did not have the courage to assert herself, or be herself at all. One event after another, sometimes small, sometimes big, show her what a mistake she has made, and how late it is to make any significant changes.

There is something about the current crop of Nollywood female filmmakers and strong female protagonists, this is evident in Isoken and Lionheart, but those ladies were sweet, and their brush with patriarchy was soft. Kemi Adetiba’s King of Boys is a more aggressive feminist story, one in which violence is the weapon that obliterates patriarchy.

The music scene in Nigeria has benefited from a large crop of women who have come in and out of the limelight, and played a part in making afropop the profitable and domineering genre it is today. Now more than ever, we’re gaining visibility all over the globe, the world is looking to Africa and paying attention to her sounds, and for once, not just the men.